How to Change Icon Size in Windows 10?

Microsoft gives every Windows user an endless set of ways to customize the operating system according to tastes and preferences of each and every one. Some users are totally ok with how everything looks by default, others enjoy changing user’s interface so much that Windows does not look like Windows anymore. Changing icon size in Windows 10 is one of the ways how you can make Windows UI looks better or easier to work with. Although increasing icon size may sound easy, not everyone knows every method of doing in.

Change Icon Size in Windows 10 – Option 1

While on desktop, click the right mouse button on the blank space and select View. You will see an additional context menu with three options: small icons, medium icons, and large icons. Try selecting each of it to find the best view for you.

Funny thing is that inside the File explorer you have much more options in the View menu.

Increase Icon Size in Windows 10 – Option 2

Three default options are fine but what if medium icons are too small and large icons are too big? Don’t worry, you can precisely increase or decrease icon size in Windows 10. It is even easier than the first option. Also, this works not only on desktop but in any other folder too thus you can increase or decrease icon size wherever you want.

Locate the Ctrl button on your keyboard and hold it. Now use the scroll wheel on the mouse. Scroll forward to increase icon size in Windows 10 and scroll backward to decrease. This gives you an option to make icons really big. In the end, you may end up with one icon taking literally half of the screen real estate.

How to Change Icons Size in Windows 10 – Option 3

This one is a bit more complex because it involves not only increasing icons size but making the entire UI bigger.

Tip. If you increase UI scaling, three default options, considered in method 1, will have bigger default values thus medium icons with 100% scaling will be smaller than medium icons with 150% scaling and vice versa.

Go to Settings (simply press Win + I) and find System – Display section. It opens by default when you click on System.

Now look for Scale and layout section. From the drop-down menu Change the size of text, apps, and other items select a bigger or lesser value.

If you have more than one screen, you need to repeat this procedure for every screen unless you want to keep different scaling.

Reboot your PC or sign out of the system and sign back in.

Done. Now everything, including icons, is bigger. If that was not enough, combine this step with two previous options to get the perfect icon size in Windows 10.

How to Change Icon Size in Windows 10 on Taskbar?

Unfortunately, customizing icon size on the taskbar is more restricted than icons on the desktop or in folders. Windows allows you to choose either small icons or medium icons. OS uses medium icons by default which means you can’t increase them any further without messing around with third party-software or registry editor. If you really want to increase icon size on Windows 10 taskbar, scaling is your best friend (look at the option 3 in this article).

What if you use small icons on the taskbar and want to make them bigger without changing UI scaling? Do the following:

Right-click on the taskbar and select Taskbar Settings. This will pop open Settings app.

Locate Use small taskbar icons and turn it off (or on). The taskbar will automatically become bigger or smaller depending on whether you turned that toggle on or off.

Tip. There is also an option to increase taskbar size but not its icons. It comes handy when you need to keep lots of icons, and they all do not fit. Right-click on the taskbar and make sure it is not locked (Lock the taskbar should be without checkmark). Hover your mouse over the top edge of the taskbar until cursor changes to the two-sided arrow. Press and hold the right button on the mouse and move the cursor to the top.